What

Most campaign ads are short, sharp, shocks. They aim to ram a simple message (positive or negative) home.

"The Road We've Travelled" is not like that. It is almost 17 minutes long. That makes it the Lawrence of Arabia of campaign ads.

When

The film was put out this week online, but is also being shown at campaign offices and supporters' homes all around the country. That shows its intent to be more than just a campaign ad, but a sort of motivational tool. The aim is not really to persuade anyone to vote for Obama (what Republican or undecided voter would sit through it?). It is designed to inspire Obama volunteers and provide them with a powerful narrative to talk about.

Why

"The Road We've Travelled" is aimed at solving the essential conundrum of Obama's presidency: how to equate the inspiring, historic campaigner of 2008 with the grim realities of government from 2009 to 2012? In essence, Obama's main opponent at the moment in 2012 is not Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum; it is a younger, more idealistic and inspiring version of himself. It's that guy whom Obama in 2012 really needs to take on and beat.

This ad wants to show that Obama built on the hopes he raised, fulfilled expectations and generally saved the US from the brink of extinction with a dose of brave, tough-minded idealism. Of course, the cynics might say that if you have to spend 17 minutes making such sweeping and grandiose claims, they just might not be that true.

How

The ad begins with shots of flags and cheering crowds from election night back in 2008, when Obama had just won the fight to become America's first black president. But, wisely, it does not linger there. Everyone knows how much fun that was.

It switches tone quickly into reminding people of the depths of the economic crisis Obama inherited. Obama officials and news reports are shown outlining the disaster America faced by the end of 2008. Campaign chief David Axelrod describes a presentation to a group of economic experts:

"We might as well have been showing a horror movie. Because what was described in that meeting was an economic crisis beyond anything anybody had imagined."

Of course, leave it to Rahm Emanuel to then top that claim:

"Not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt had so much fallen on the shoulders of one president."

Which, for me, provides a moment when you stop and think, "Hang on a minute." Obama inherited an appalling mess. Even an historic one. But Emanuel's claims put him above, say, what Lyndon Johnson inherited in the shape of the aftermath of JFK being killed and an America roiled by the civil rights movement. Or what Richard Nixon inherited in the shape of the Vietnam war and the 1968 race riots and death of Martin Luther King. Or even what Harry Truman faced in 1945, in inheriting an America looking at a world devastated by the second world war, the emergence of the cold war, the outbreak of the Korean war and the threat of global atomic annihilation. It seems a bit much – yet also, entirely typical – that Obama's team would place themselves above that lot.

But I digress. Back to the propaganda film … I mean, motivational documentary. The voiceover now says:

"As president the tough decisions he would make would not only determine the course of the nation they would reveal the character of the man."

The film plots a course through 2009 to 2012. To jazzy, busy music, it shows how the Recovery Act kept teachers and policemen in their jobs. It hails the auto-bailout (and takes a swipe at Romney's opposition to it). It wheels out figures beloved of liberals, like Elizabeth Warren and Bill Clinton, to hail their chief. Then, at the seven-minute mark, it plunges into healthcare. Wisely, it avoids too much description of the nightmarish mess of a bill that Obama actually passed and, instead, focuses on Obama's human story of how his own mother struggled against insurance firms as she died of cancer.

Then, it is into the Iraq war (ended!) and the killing of Osama bin Laden. That latter incident is given the full "Obama as Jack Bauer" treatment. There are flashes of green-tinged night-vision film and a scary comment from Joe Biden:

"This is his decision. If he was wrong his presidency was done. Over."

But, of course, we know the result: one dead terrorist mastermind. "It was the ultimate test of leadership. A victory for our nation," the voiceover says. And, in truth, the bin Laden segment is powerfully done. It is a great electoral weapon to have – and one shudders what to think a Republican president would have done with it: perhaps create an entire mini-series around the secret operation, with John McCain himself bursting through the door at the last moment, machine-gun cradled on hip.

But back in the (relatively) real world, the ad now spends its last four minutes on a romp through other key achievements and demographic elements of the base. A suitably ethnically diverse mix of people are shown enjoying the benefits of healthcare coverage. Financial markets reform is mentioned – if given strangely little prominence, despite the massive public anger at Wall Street (though, given the huge donations Wall Street firms have historically made to Obama and the Democrats, perhaps this is not so strange after all). There is talk of the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", though the word "gay" is never spoken. Women are given their due with shoutouts to the appointment of two female US supreme court justices and new laws on equal pay.

"Let's remember how far we've come and look forward to the work still to be done," it concludes. It's a slick piece of film-making. It works, too. It makes a plausible case for those liberals who think Obama has done too little, too late and wasted his first term. It reminds them of genuine successes and achievements. It will fulfil the mission of giving volunteers something to say when they start knocking on doors and picking up phones.

Will it be enough? It is a strong start. But at the same time, one is still left with a lingering feeling from those images at the very start of the ad: those flags, those cheers, those hopes. Does this video prove those dreams were not abandoned? That's doubtful, at best.

But then, you look at the guys Obama might be facing in the fall, in the shape of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. For my money, the Republicans themselves remain the best recruiting sergeant the Democrats have.